Problem statement

Adoption of Eclipse tools and runtimes has reached an all time high, and today Eclipse software is embedded into many commercial software products. Enterprise software vendors are required to support their products, including the Eclipse components, for many years. Thus they are looking for support offerings that cover a variety of Eclipse projects and a large number of releases. The issue becomes more urgent the more Eclipse technology reaches into the runtime stack.

Due to the diversity of projects and committers at Eclipse, which come from a variety of companies and individuals, it is currently impossible to get a 'one-stop-support-contract' for all of Eclipse technologies needed. Vendor neutrality and diversity bring innovation and long term viability to Eclipse, but make it difficult to provide the support enterprises are looking for. It is very difficult for any one company in the Eclipse ecosystem to offer support and maintenance that covers the entire spectrum of Eclipse technologies.

Goals and Vision

The goal of the Long Term Support (LTS) Industry Working Group (IWG) is to enable the Eclipse ecosystem to consume and provide maintenance and support for the full breadth of Eclipse technologies.

To implement this vision, the IWG will:

Enable an ecosystem-based solution for long term support and maintenance.

Define and implement the policies, procedures and infrastructure required for long term support and maintenance, including software repositories, software builds, software distribution, and test facilities.

Define a roadmap for LTS deliverables.

If agreed to by the Steering Committee, create and define the content to be contained in LTS releases, including:

defining an LTS release branch based on an Eclipse release train, and

the content of LTS service releases.

Roles

There are 4 roles in this ecosystem:

Consumers are organizations that acquire maintenance and support services.

Maintenance Service Providers(MSPs) leverage the IWG systems to provide commercial support and maintenance services to Consumers.

Self Service Maintenance Providers(SSMPs) are Consumers that leverage the IWG systems to provide internal support and maintenance services.

Project Support Providers(PSPs) are organizations or individuals that leverage the IWG systems to provide support and maintenance services for one or more Eclipse projects.

It is expected that MSPs and SSMPs will aggregate the services of PSPs to provide maintenance services to Consumers, or in the case of SSMPs, to themselves.

Core services and activities

The LTS IWG will provide the management processes to enable an ecosystem-based long-term support program.

LTS provides a forge that enables building Eclipse software in the future for maintenance and support. The forge will include:

Code repositories

Bug tracking

Knowledge management

Software distribution and code signing

Employees and contractors of organizations participating in this LTS IWG will have access LTS IWG facilities based on that organization's participation level as described in the Membership section below.

Connections with other Eclipse Working Groups

The LTS IWG may have connections with other IWGs such as Polarsys, Automotive, and others.

Additional industry working groups may request access to the LTS infrastructure in the future. Such access, including funding and annual fees, will require the approval of the LTS IWG Steering Committee.

Membership

An entity must be at least Solutions Members of the Eclipse Foundation, have executed the LTS IWG Participation Agreement, and conform to this Charter to participate in the LTS IWG.

There are three membership levels: Participant, Premium, and Steering committee. Participant members have access to the download site providing LTS binaries. Premium members have Participant level access as well as access to the LTS forge and build farm. Steering committee members have Premium level access and also governance influence over the direction of the IWG such as budget and resource allocation.

LTS Steering Committee membership is provided at no additional charge to Strategic Members paying the maximum level of dues ($250K)

LTS Premium membership is provided at no additional charge to Strategic Members paying dues in excess of $100K

LTS IWG Steering Committee Member Fees

Turnover

Steering Committee Membership

>$250 million

$30,000

>$100 million <= $250 million

$30,000

>$50 million <= $100 million

$20,000

>$10 million <= $50 million

$20,000

<$10 million

$15,000

LTS IWG Premium Member Fees

Turnover

LTS Premium Membership

>$250 million

$20,000

>$100 million <= $250 million

$20,000

>$50 million <= $100 million

$15,000

>$10 million <= $50 million

$15,000

<$10 million

$10,000

LTS IWG Participant Member Fees

Turnover

LTS Participant Membership

>$250 million

$10,000

>$100 million <= $250 million

$10,000

>$50 million <= $100 million

$7,500

>$10 million <= $50 million

$7,500

<$10 million

$5,000

<$1 million & < 10 employees

$1,500

Member Privileges

Privilege

SC Member

Premium Member

Participant Member

Member of the Steering Committee

X

-

-

Member of the Change Control Board

X

-

-

Host custom build on LTS infrastructure

X

X

-

Host custom branch on LTS infrastructure

X

X

-

Access to the LTS build and signing infrastructure

X

X

-

Attend IWG meetings

X

X

X

Access to binary releases

X

X

X

Governance

This Long Term Support IWG is designed as:

a user driven organization,

a means to foster a vibrant and sustainable ecosystem of components and service providers,

a means to organize the community of each project or component so that users and developers can define and provide maintenance content collaboratively.

In order to implement these principles, the following governance bodies have been defined:

The Steering Committee

Change Control Boards

Steering Committee

Steering committee members are required to:

define the strategy of the IWG,

define an annual program plan and budget, including the setting of annual LTS IWG dues,

define support durations for LTS and VLTS (Very Long Term Support),

define additional membership levels for the IWG,

define the global roadmap,

discuss and update the charter,

manage the creation, operation, and termination of Change Control Boards,

define and implement marketing and communication activities,

elect a chairman each year, and

meet a minimum of twice per year.

Change Control Boards

Each service release defined by the roadmap is led by a Change Control Board.

Change Control Boards members are required to:

create and maintain a plan, to be approved by the Steering Committee,

prioritize and approve all software changes to be included in each service release, and

report regularly to the Steering Committee on status.

The Change Control Board elects a chairman who represents the projects.

Each Change Control Board will be disbanded once the service release under its control has been released.